blue shadows stitched to her toes
by steve.a
Summary: "The first thing Kay did when she turned 18 was pack her shit, vacate her aunt and uncle's house, and move across the country back to L.A." Reality hits Kay Faraday after a lifetime of aching for her father and dreaming about heroes of justice. Written for a PWKM prompt asking for Kay stuck working a dead-end job. Set post-AAI.


**BLUE SHADOWS STITCHED TO HER TOES**

* * *

The first thing Kay did when she turned 18 was pack her shit, vacate her aunt and uncle's house, and move across the country back to L.A. Her relatives had never been unkind to her, exactly; it was just that she knew they'd never wanted to take her in, to become responsible for a troublemaking orphan, and she loathed the idea of depending on them for money. They were relieved to see her go, she thought.

Wal-Mart was a loud, chaotic, mind-numbing place to spend nine-hour shifts in and the blue vest was most definitely not her style. Kay worked the cash register, and her customer service manager yelled at her a lot for mouthing off to rude customers. She never got fired, though - her IPH was easily higher than all of the other cashiers', most of whom were middle-aged and couldn't give less of a crap. After four, five, six months, Kay mostly lost the energy to mouth off.

Her apartment was a shithole, a cramped two-bedroom that she shared with two other people, and her landlord was a dick, but she was lucky to be able to afford the rent. Kay was _tired_ , and between her endless routine of work, jogging, sleep, and work, it was easy for her to forget just how she ended up here. _Things weren't supposed to be this way_ , she remembered sometimes on nights she found it hard to sleep, nights she thought she could feel the cold barrel of a gun against her temple or her father's ghost sighing in the corner. Kay was going to be a hero, once upon a time, a crusader for justice, a Great Thief of truth - not an 18-almost-19-year-old kid working forty-five hours a week bagging people's groceries. But, well, she had spent seven years slacking off in school, and she didn't get into any good colleges, and she was too proud and too ashamed to stay with her relatives and ask them to pay for community college. Apparently, Heroes of Justice needed a diploma.

During her first two months living on her own, she had toyed with the idea of becoming a prosecutor like her father (and like Mr. Edgeworth - but it hurt too much now to think of him, to think of someone alive with the capacity to be disappointed in her), but after hours of reading about law on the Internet and falling asleep against textbooks in the library, she'd decided to set it all aside for the time being. Edgeworth had told her to follow her own path, after all, to build a life separate from her father's legacy - maybe he and the universe were telling her that she just wasn't good enough. She wasn't Byrne Faraday or Miles Edgeworth. She wasn't Dick Gumshoe, because Gummy gave two shits about his job. Hell, he gave a thousand shits; meanwhile, Kay, she-used-to-be-such-a-sweet-kid Kay, could barely find it in herself to care if some old lady's carton of eggs was crushed at the bottom of the plastic grey Wal-Mart bag.

(The eggs never were crushed, though, because even though Kay was tired, and Kay told herself she didn't care, she was still so careful and worked so hard. She was saving up everything that wasn't sucked up by rent and food, saving up for - for what? Most days, she had no idea.)

On the days that she woke up and cared, she would rediscover her hatred for Calisto Yew. That hatred had been her fallback for seven years, the perfect motivator, and her father's killer the perfect scapegoat. She thought the habit would subside after personally seeing Calisto Yew (she was called Shih-na, then) off to prison, but now more than ever she felt the weight of her father's absence. Like, maybe if her father had been alive, Kay would have worked harder in school, would - would be smarter, would be less stupid and less stubborn and less tired, would not be working at Wal-Mart and arguing with the landlord about the leaky ceiling. Maybe Byrne would have sat her down when she was younger and told her, before it was too late, not to waste her time trying to be like him, because she would never be like him, and maybe he would have told her what she ought to be instead. (Or maybe he would've told her to just be herself, to gun for what was important to _her_ , and then she sure as hell would never have wound up in an ugly blue vest and drafty apartment.)

On those days that she woke up and cared, she could choose to be sad about her father or to be spitting mad at Calisto Yew, so she chose to be mad. On those days she woke up and cared, she had to force herself not to take a bus to the prosecutor's office.

 _I can't,_ she reminded herself fiercely. _There's no way I can face him again until I'm someone he'll respect instead of feel sorry for._ She couldn't face Miles Edgeworth until and unless she was half the hero he had always been. The existence she led might have been pathetic, but at least it was wholly her own - at least she worked for herself instead of moving forward as a disappointed prosecutor's charity case.

One day, when the desire to visit Miles Edgeworth was so intense, Kay went to prison. She called, made an appointment, and then there she was, sitting at a table with Shih-na, or Calisto Yew, or whoever the hell this monster really was.

(She looked like Shih-na, but there was that _smile_ , and her laughter sounded so gut-wrenchingly like Yew's that Kay's blood froze in her veins.)

"Would you look at that…" Yew's grin seemed to bleed through the glass barrier separating them and twist itself like a blade into Kay's chest, making Kay's pulse quicken and her fingers curl into tight fists. "The prodigal daughter returns."

Kay studied her, silent. Prison did not appear to be treating Yew well. She was thinner, with heavy dark rings under her eyes like she had even more trouble sleeping than Kay did. Her pale complexion seemed sickly now, sallow instead of ethereal and beautiful.

"What happened to your manners?" Yew asked, noticing Kay's clenched fists. "You were so damn poised when they led me away in chains at that embassy. I thought you had your father's courtesy."

"Don't talk about my father," Kay said sharply. She drew a steadying breath. This woman would not be the one to make her snap.

"Pwwhh… Sorry, but it's just so funny to hear you say that." She shook her head, mimed wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. The clinking sound of her handcuffs calmed Kay's nerves, but just slightly. "After all," Yew continued, "I knew your father better than you can ever hope to."

"I know everything important," Kay said, stiff. "But like I said, I'm not here for him."

"Well, what _are_ you here to talk about? Is this a business call, then?"

Yew appeared to be biting back laughter again, and Kay wondered idly if Calisto Yew ever cried - just cried, without any pretense. (Probably not.)

"Are you still intent on being a chip off the old, stupid block, Kay Faraday? Still trying to make a dead crow fly again?"

"No." Kay's voice was flat and controlled. "I'm working full-time at a Wal-Mart. I barely graduated high school, and I'm behind on my rent. My apartment leaks, and I share it with a college student and a male stripper."

There was a full minute of silence between them as Kay stared unflinchingly back at Yew, waiting patiently for her mouth to twitch, for her eyes to light up with gleeful malice.

It didn't happen.

Yew's face was just as stony as hers when she finally said, "Are you trying to make me laugh? Premeditated jokes just don't really do it for me, you know."

Kay shrugged. "I guess I'm telling you this," she began slowly, figuring out the words as she spoke them, "because I feel sorry for you. Because you're in prison and you killed my father and I thought you ruined my life, but you know, I guess I messed up my life on my own, for the most part. I don't know. You're such a fuck-up - I think if you laugh at me, I could just laugh right back."

A long beat, and then Yew smirked. Maybe it was even a little bit of a smile, sort of. "That's actually pretty good," she said. She let out a laugh, short and unfamiliar. "Did you know - did you know only Byrne has ever made me want to laugh, really laugh, like this? I guess - it's something about you Faradays - that just gets to me, huh?"

Kay got up, the legs of her chair scraping harshly against the hard floor of the visitor's room. The same kind of serenity she channeled the night Shih-na was led away in handcuffs washed through her now, steadying her hands and breath and heartbeat.

"Sorry," she told Yew, earnest and honest - like her father, Yew said once. "I've been blaming you for a very long time - half my life - to hide from my own screwups, all so I could smile and play a hero. I'm sorry about that." Kay turned to exit, but stopped briefly by the door to say, "I'm still glad you'll rot in a cell, though."

Kay left and didn't look back.

She dropped by the library on her way home and signed into a computer. After three hours of research, she returned to the apartment with a mess of printouts about law schools, police academy, becoming a detective, and the requirements for joining Interpol. Kay tacked them all up on the bulletin board above her bed, alongside Franziska von Karma's and Agent Lang's phone numbers carefully circled in red marker (both given to her with much reluctance almost two years ago) and a creased photo of Gummy and Mr. Edgeworth and that 17-year-old, bright-eyed version of herself. Then she went to bed, and slept.

The next day, Kay put on her blue vest and went to work. She spared the bulletin board one long glance before heading out, Little Thief stuffed into her purse. She still had no idea where her path was leading, but that wasn't the point. The point was that it was leading _somewhere_ , despite everything, and she was prepared to do whatever it took to get there.


End file.
